Doogie Not Down With Stunt-Casting

Britney Spears' two minutes of screen time attracted one million extra viewers to How I Met Your Mother, but Neil Patrick Harris doesn't think it's a worthwhile trade.

Doogie has become somewhat awesome to interview lately, since he is always willing to say exactly what he thinks.

I'm in the minority that our show does not need stunt casting in order to succeed. I worry that if they start ‘Will and Grace’-ing us too much, that the show will suffer.

He then went on to wager a guess at the show's next special guest star, billed as a "mystery woman" last week.

No telling, but based on the stunt casting we've done in the past I'm guessing Tara Reid.

A couple news outlets have referred to Harris as "ungracious" and such for taking a swipe at Britney, since yeah, she did get A MILLION MORE PEOPLE to watch the show. But he's got a point, since hardly any of those people tuned in the next week, and it's doubtful that a second Britney appearance would garner the same ratings, because come on.

A lot of people tuned in because they wanted to watch her crash and burn. They wanted to see her struggle to get her lines out, looking bloated and busted with her broke-ass weave. They wanted 30 minutes of the VMAs. Instead, she was...perfectly capable. I mean, I found her part corny and pretty contrived (a receptionist busting into a closed-door medical appointment to return a book and a doctor being fine with that receptionist hanging up on patients meant that like, 90% of the part was written to simply manipulate the plot in the most lazy way possible), but that's the fault of the writers. (I'm not a super-loyal HIMYM watcher, but other episodes I've seen were far superior to this one.) Britney looked cute, combed her hair, knew her lines and delivered them about as well as the script allowed.

Which is exactly what people DIDN'T WANT, so I can't fault Harris (who seems really, really genuinely proud of his show) for pointing out that this is not the audience the show wants or needs.

“I just am a real fan of our content,” says Harris. “I think we have a great show going, and I hope it’s not screwed up by the desire for 700,000 more viewers.”